Education picture depends on beholder

Once the political storm over public education clears, Utah parents could see a few changes in classrooms and the family checkbook.

But the beauty of the changes will be in the eye of the beholder.

For instance, parents of children with a disability can get up to a $5,400 government check to send them to private schools.

"It will help so many people," said Cheryl Smith, mother of the boy with autism after whom HB115, "Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarships," was named.

On the other hand, the measure is estimated to cost $1.5 million.

Also, students in Utah charter schools will be funded on par with those in regular public schools.

But some school leaders say the funding comes at the expense of regular public schools. They point to $400,000 taken from summer programs to fund charter schools.

Utah moms and dads also were spared the prospect of paying more in income taxes to send their children to school.

And schools got a $2.1 billion budget: $106 million above last year's budget, or a more than 5 percent increase in the basic program.

But Utah public education, which remains in last place nationally for per-student spending, could have had more money.

Neighborhood schools could have had an extra $80 million to help struggling students under a bill that sought to ax the child and federal tax deductions on state income taxes. They also could have had a few million bucks 18 months from now under a bill that would have let the basic property tax revenues grow with the housing market.

Still, people aren't off the tax man's hook.

"The people haven't avoided a tax increase. It's just a matter of who levies it," said Granite Board of Education President Sarah Meier, who lobbies at the Capitol for the Utah School Boards Association.

School districts that want a piece of the $15 million in state funds for a reading initiative, aimed at helping the 20,600 first- through third-graders who read below grade level, will have to kick in their own funds if they want more than $29,200, as legislative action stood early Wednesday evening. That might mean raising property taxes in some areas.

That's due to a compromise between legislators and Gov. Olene Walker, who wanted the state to front a full $30 million for reading help.